Nepal election commission disqualifies 280 candidates

DPA Kathmandu, April 4 (DPA) Nepal’s election commission has disqualified 280 candidates for not meeting legal requirements to contest the constituent assembly elections, officials said Friday. Officials said those disqualified included candidates standing for the direct elections as well as for the proportional representation.

“We have disqualified candidates who were either below legal age to become a candidate or have not provided necessary documents,” Election Commissioner Nil Kantha Upreti said.

“Of the 280 disqualified by the commission, 66 were below the legally required age of 25 years,” Upreti said. “The remaining were disqualified because they had not provided proof of citizenship.”

The commission also said some of the candidate’s appeared in both the lists for direct election and proportional representation and represented two or more parties.

“We will disqualify them as well after we complete our investigations by Saturday,” Upreti said.

Nepal goes to the polls April 10 to choose a 602-member constituent assembly that will draft the country’s new constitution and ratify the interim parliament’s decision to abolish monarchy.

Only 240 of members will be directly elected while the remaining number will be chosen through proportional representation based on the number of votes cast for each political party.

More than 4,000 candidates are contesting for the directly contested seats while another 6,000 names have been forwarded by political parties as candidates for the proportional list.

The election of the constituent assembly is a key component of the peace agreement between the government and the Maoists signed in November 2006.

The agreement formally ended the decade-long communist insurgency in the Himalayan nation.

The election campaign has been marred by violence among rival political parties and intimidation of voters, in particular by the Maoist former rebels.

At least seven people including one candidate have been killed in pre-election violence. DPA